Hartlip Parish Magazine - March, 1919.

Dear Friends,

Since writing my last letter one of our parishioners of some years' standing - Jane Harriet Rayfield - has passed away. Her illness was prolonged, yet she bore up with her usual high spirits against increasing want of vitality. She was ever ready to hear the Master's message, till he called away on January 29. We sympathize with her husband and daughter.

There has been, and still is, much sickness in the parish especially among the seniors; we remember them before God, as also the sorrowing ones, too, when we "assemble together."

I referred last month to the organ repairs, the cost being £8 15s., the greater part of which has been received in guineas and half-guinea donations. No doubt there are many of you who would like to contribute what you can afford to this necessary outlay. One has already sent me 1s. in response to the February notice.

The first day of Lent this year is March 5, and no Lent ever came to us with such an imperative call to turn to God with all our heart, than does this one. God has tried to rouse up England from her sleep of indifference-to-religion for years past. He sent the Great War of four years' duration, with all its suffering, privation, anxiety and dread by day amd night and did it rouse people to serve God better? Now on the heels of the long prayed-for Peace, has arisen the very grave danger of an Industrial War at home.

It seems unthinkable that having endured the hardships and terror of a four years' war abroad, and won it, that Britons should begin at once a wages-war amongst themselves. What a spectacle to foreigners, and to the non-Christian world in particular that so-called Christian Britain should act as at present. True, there are a great many things very wrong which require righting, and must be righted as soon as possible, viz.: housing, more smallholdings, adjusting of hours, a living wage (and many of the clergy feel this last hardship deeply and could say much about it), etc.

There is a time for everything, and surely this is not the moment to raise all these far-reaching

questions and demand an immediate settlement, when the Government have their hands full with the Peace Conference and all its infinities. The one great need of the day is PATIENCE. Doubtless the Nation is suffering from nerves, consequent upon four years' strain: therefore all the more need for patient forbearance, and mutual consideration. For e.g., the miner ought to be paid well for his dangerous work, but he must remember that the coal is for the country's benefit and use, not for him to HOLD UP solely for his own advantage. Mr. Thomas's address to the railwaymen on February 8 was statesmanlike: "I plead with you," he said, "not to take the law into your own hands. The essence of democracy is to be loyal to those you have put into authority. Any other way will lead to disaster." "It seems," as one has said, "as if the Devil was let loose in the world and knowing that his time is short," he is urging men on to do the awful things that are happening. There is a right way to obtain right things; let Britons follow that. But it behoves every Christian man and woman to plead with God, that we as a people may be turned back to Him, by whose spirit all wrongs will be righted and the crooked ways be made straight. Let us use this Lent to that end, strive to attend the services. There will be one on Thursday evenings with addresses by Rev. J. M. Tamplin; days and hours of others will be announced.

Other matters are left over for want of space.

Your faithful Friend and Vicar,

J. S. McMILLAN.

BURIAL.
"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord."
Feb.1-Jane Harriet Rayfield, aged 57 years.
CALENDAR.
Mar.5-Ash Wednesday.
9.0, Children's Service.
10.30, Holy Communion,
7.0, Ash Wednesday service.
"25-Annunciation B.V.M. 10.30 a.m.